by Chris Folsum

Created on: March 12, 2009

The title itself is a little deceiving. USA PATRIOT ACT is not United States of America Patriot Act.

USA PATRIOT ACT is an acronym for Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism; AN ACT to deter and punish terrorist acts in the United States and around the world, to enhance law enforcement investigatory tools, and for other purposes. When reflecting back to the horrors we were forced to endure 43 days before the date on this ACT, this sounds possibly comforting to some Americans. When you discect the ACT and define the word most repeated throughout it, it is actually more terrifying than the events that allowed it to be passed by Congress in the middle of the night.

Terrorism is a word that is hard for anyone to define, which makes it too vague. It doesn't matter who is reading this right now, to someone, somewhere in your life you have committed terrorism in someones opinion. One man's good deed is another man's act of terrorism. The authors of this ACT are well aware of this, that's why its written the way it was. The ACT doesn't specify any certain crimes as TERRORISM. It doesn't specify that igniting a fire bomb into a building full of people or a nuclear device in the basement of a 100 story building is considered terrorism. Instead the way that the ACT is worded, you could be considered a terrorist if you happened to jay walk across the street and caused multiple death's in doing so, if you couldn't prove to a jury that your intent was not to cause multiple deaths. Under the PATRIOT ACT's definition of terrorism, knowing that jay walking is illegal and doing it proves you intended to cause multiple deaths, because you broke the law and jaywalked. As far as I know there has not been such a terrorist act, but under the PATRIOT ACT it would be legal for the prosecutor to charge you under the ACT and for the jury to convict you. The Patriot undermines our freedoms by broadening the legal definition of all criminal acts that involve intellectual property, safety of others, and other existing law.

American's who haven't read the Patriot Act might be surprised and alarmed to know that those credit bills they aren't able to afford to pay right now because of the economy, also overdrawn checking accounts, is considered terrorist activity according to the Patriot Act. Isn't that (no pun intended) rich? The very government that slid the Patriot Act through is the same government that over the next 7

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